Wake Forest enjoys a strong tradition of freedom of expression and academic freedom.
In the 1920s, Wake Forest’s administration and trustees defended the rights of its faculty to teach the theory of evolution, staking a claim in opposition to the university’s founding organization and some of its most dedicated supporters at the time (Washington Post, 1979). In 1977, Wake Forest students invited Hustler magazine publisher Larry Flynt to campus in acknowledgement of his entrepreneurial example and fight for first amendment rights (Wake Forest Magazine, 2019). This decision was protested by the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina, prompting President Scales to defend the University’s “open platform” policy. Members of the North Carolina Baptist State Convention attempted to intervene in University operations later that year by protesting use of National Science Foundation funds to build a greenhouse and animal facility on campus. These controversies cemented a shared commitment of the Board of Trustees and the University administration, which was acknowledged by the American Association of University Professors with the prestigious Alexander Meiklejohn Award. When accepting the award, Scales said Wake Forest would be “a fortress of independent thought” (WF Magazine).